The corny dog was born at the State Fair of Texas in 1942, when Neil and Carl Fletcher figured out how to get a hot dog on a stick into hot oil without it falling apart. Eighty-four years later, a member of that same family just won one of the fair’s biggest honors by taking the family’s own invention apart and putting it back together as dessert.
Beck Fletcher’s Fletcher’s Chocolate Corny Dog took home Best Taste – Sweet at the 22nd Annual Big Tex Choice Awards, announced today. The dish swaps the hot dog for milk chocolate fudge, hand-dips it in the same corny dog batter that made the family name, fries it until golden, then finishes it with vanilla icing and raspberry compote. It’s the kind of move that only works if you actually own the recipe you’re bending, and Fletcher does.
Best Taste – Savory went to Tom Grace for his Burger Chop Tater Tacos — a chopped burger patty with sautéed onions and jalapeños, mozzarella and American cheese, all piled onto a taco shell made of cheddar tater tots and finished with buffalo buttermilk ranch coleslaw and garlic parmesan buffalo sauce. Grace had two dishes in this year’s finalist field, which put him in the unusual position of possibly competing against himself for the top prize.
The new Best Taste – Sipper category, which the fair added this year to recognize drinkable entries as their own class, went to Fruteria Cano’s Tropical Coco Fresca, a layered pineapple-watermelon agua fresca with a chamoy and Tajín rim, topped with a scoop of coconut snow built to melt slowly into the drink. Most Creative went to Stephen El Gidi’s Berry Me in Matcha, a New York-style cheesecake dipped in white chocolate, rolled in crushed matcha cookies, and finished with strawberry jam and a fresh strawberry slice.
Fifteen dishes made the finalist round this year out of what the fair’s judges called an unusually deep field. Among the entries that didn’t take a title: Dickel’s Texas Two Step Tacos, a second Tom Grace entry called Flamin’ Crunch Pizza, a Golden Crunch Melt from Tony and Terry Bednar, Nacho Wings from Cody and Lauren Hays, and a peach bellini soft serve float from Tami and Josey Nevins Mayes.
The Big Tex Choice Awards, now in its 22nd year and presented by Karbach Brewing Company, has become the fair’s own proving ground for the kind of dish that only makes sense at a fair — built to be eaten standing up, engineered for maximum flavor per bite, and rarely available anywhere else. The 2026 State Fair of Texas runs September 25 through October 18 at Fair Park, where all four winning dishes, along with the rest of this year’s finalists, will be available to try in person.
